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Random Thoughts about English Writing
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November 2010
Well, eight-year-long English study never makes me belittle the difficulty of English writing. Although now I’m majoring in English, I still find it hard to improve writing. (This may be partly attributed to the fact that I'm not a smart reader and writer in my mother tongue). Therefore, students start to draw more attention to improving these two parts. As a result, a lot of non-English majors can also speak English fluently, even more fluently than English majors. Countless cases prove that by continual practices, one can acquire good listening and speaking skills and make great improvement upon them. But to our depression and confusion, it seems a tougher goal to have a better command of writing regardless of how much we have put in. This complaint is not exceptional but universal with English learners, English majors in particular.
What education has given me over the years is not the impetus to discover the beauty of English but the pursuit of acing numerous English exams and obtaining required degrees and certificates. Honestly, I don't read a lot after class because I have to deal with “more important jobs than reading and writing”. And I know that I have failed to grasp the essence of language study, but I seem to be helpless. Sometimes I do manage to squeeze out time to write something, but pitifully it always ends up a poor one. When we began to learn writing, teachers encouraged the early use of dictionaries, stressed grammar and the spelling of words, and even asked us to learn by rote some writing patterns catering for exams. All this may have limited the ways of thinking, rendering writing unaffected and lifeless.
Remember how Chinese teachers taught us to write? There're several points that can never be too emphasized: beautiful expressions, grammatically correct sentences, usages of rhetoric, styles and types of writing, unique structures, true feelings, main subjects, etc. And against all these elements, the importance of ideas stands out. Writing is a spontaneous flow of opinions and emotions. It's often the brain that counts. We can widen the horizon as well as exercise our technical abilities to apply a language through digesting tons of great works and thinking in solitude. Besides, life experience can make us more human and mature, which is covertly revealed in our writing.
So, how can I improve writing during the rest of my university years? By reading a lot? By writing often? Or by both? To me, the clear answer hasn't been unveiled yet. But I do know that I will try to write down all that surprises me, delights me, saddens me, and touches me as genuine emotions flowing spontaneously through one’s body may contribute to good writing.
Go to hell, exams and certificates!
